- I’m curious about the widespread affection our society has for a regular no-fuss cup of joe. With apologies and a warm heart for those who adore the stuff, I’ve started to ask why, exactly, people like bad coffee so much. To find out I interviewed dozens of Edmontonians of various backgrounds about their deep abiding love of bad coffee, and learned some not-so-bad things in the process.
Because fuck your pretentious clover-blessed Costa Rican peach fuzz, bitch. Here, try this on: 1) You know what coffee made in a Clover tastes like? Coffee. You know what it costs like? A microbrew. 2) You know what Costa Rican coffee tastes like? Battery acid. You know what? I'll bet you could make that in your precious Clover, too. 3) You know what's bullshit? This is bullshit. You know what else is bullshit? This is. You know what "bad coffee" is code for? Pretense-free coffee. See, I grind $10lb beans that are fresh and I pour boiling water over a #2 filter into a thermos and I call it "coffee." You? You call that shit a "pour-over" and you charge me $5.50 and you have a fucking Vimeo clip of it. Just in case you missed it, you just charged me a half a pound of coffee to make me a cup of coffee the same way I make it at home. ...and then you're going to expect a tip. So no. I don't want a fucking "Americano." And no. I don't need you to justify your fucking $11,000 coffee machine. Because here's the secret: If your beans are any good, you fucking with it just makes the coffee worse. THAT is why Starbuck's bought Clover. They didn't want you to get used to the idea that a machine can make better coffee than a person, and by coming up with an $11,000 coffee maker, Clover opened up the artisanal bullshit tap on automation and that leads to a bunch of automated Kuerig-powered Redboxes sitting at the corner, not Starbuck's. So for those of you who know that all your Torani and all your whipped milk and all your $46 buy-one-here Chemex bullshit with its leather thong simply masks the fact that your beans are stale, kindly fuck off and stop pretending that coffee made without pretense, without excessive banging about on the Gaggia and without dripping fucking teddy bears into my foam is a sin. It's a drip, not an Americano. It's a large, not a venti. And if it's any goddamn good, you can microwave it that afternoon because if coffee really were that fucking sensitive it sure as hell wouldn't have caught on in the middle ages.I’m curious about the widespread affection our society has for a regular no-fuss cup of joe. With apologies and a warm heart for those who adore the stuff, I’ve started to ask why, exactly, people like bad coffee so much.
Innocently, I explained that I could make her an americano or a Clover (a kind of automated reverse French press, prepared by the cup and now owned by Starbucks). I added that the espresso we were pulling that day was from a small farm in Costa Rica, and that the best offering on Clover was the Kenyan, which tasted like fuzzy peaches.
Stumptown coffee isn't bad... It isn't my favorite. There is nothing wrong with coffee made with a brewer, in an air pot if it's fresh. My extractor (brewer, dripper, wte) if fucking nice. It cost a fair amount of money but a hell of a lot less than a clover. It pre-wets the coffee and brews it over a period of five minutes. It's pretty much a giant pour over machine. Any time I get a new variety or my roaster changes my roast, I make it as a pour over and compare it to the drip, some times I like the drip better. If I still drank coffee at home (if I wasn't always at work) I'd probably be using an aeropress. It's fast, clean and makes a great single cup of coffee. It wins out in the clean and fast department. If I have company over I'll make a pot in my shitty Mr. Coffee dripper. Good beans make good coffee, it's almost hard to fuck up.
You're right - Stumptown isn't bad. It also isn't the Second Coming, which is a difficult conversation to have with anyone who seeks out Stumptown. Intelligentsia, on the other hand, is shit coffee. I have thrown out coffee twice in my life: the first was Intelligentsia. The second was the free rest stop coffee south of Olympia on the drive up here. I've had free rest stop coffee for half my life, and I've never thrown it out before. I think that says something about Intelligentsia. Say what you will about the aeropress, but fuck this bullshit in the neck. I'm not (1) Grinding my fucking coffee by hand (2) making it 8oz at a time (3) spending a c-note to get three free coozies. As a manual grinder, it uses no electricity, so you can get fresh ground coffee anywhere - and a bit of arm exercise too! The grind quality is very even, and the low speed manual grinding action provides a superior tasting cup of coffee compared to a typical high speed blade grinder.
Stumptown has lost a good deal of it's shine over the past few years. It just got sold to Peet's coffee, which is in turn owned by a giant holding company, the same holding that company owns Jimmy Choo's. Word is that they want to take the supermarket canned cold brew world wide. Heart is the big dog in town at the moment. They don't make coffee, just espresso. They will try and make you feel bad about yourself if you order coffee. It's really good espresso, its expensive espresso. Like so many things, after you start buying top quality stuff, the improvement you get from buying the very "best" is marginal and a big part of the satisfaction is the snootyness of the whole thing. My roaster is cheap for premium coffee. The owner is a terrible business man. He sucks at sales and marketing, barely gets my orders to me in time, I have to remind him to bill me. They deliver everything by bike, I don't know how they make any money after the labor of slowly pushing coffee all around town. All their equipment is ancient, exotic and premium needing constant tweaking and maintenance. They brew their pour overs in mason jars topped with expensive German filters that totter precariously and occasionally tip and spill. It's just chaos. They ride no Wave and are on no bandwagon. Their coffee is usually great, occasionally bad and every once in a while it's just fucking amazing. He had a blog post not long ago where a thousand pounds of Giraldo Exotica showed up at his tiny roastery, he didn't remember buying it and had no where to put it but hell yea! Giraldo Exotica is delicious! I think the only thing he's good at is making coffee and riding bikes. Almost no one knows his brand but the few who do are excited because it is it's own thing. Unpredictable, unpretentious, and often inconsistent which gives it a chance to be occasionally amazing rather than safe (Stumptown is safe as the bank, don't think I've thought about how a cup if it tasted in years). Dude gave me 5 pounds of Ethiopian Gedeb, a yirgacheffee. This is an announcement, yirgacheffee is a region with a bunch of different coffee's that are often quite different from each other, stop saying you hate yirgacheffee (it's fine to say you often hate them). This coffee tasted like blueberries. I don't say things like that. I don't "detect hints of apricot, mothballs and cardamon" I try and reduce it to straight emotivism, I like it or I don't. At most I'll have one or two reasons I like or dislike it, which can some times be "tastes funky". How the hell do you move five pounds of blueberry coffee? Shit was amazing in a I'd try that once kinda way, sure as he'll wasn't "safe". Honest to God it was like putting a blueberry in your mouth and chomping down while taking a swig. I'm just blathering now...
Wow. I've thought about a concept for a "coffee shop" that only does high end espressos, and has 3-5 premium beans dialed in on any given day. Was thinking about it after having some phenomenal espressos at a place not to far from me, -felt you could make a shop centered on that. Of course they're already into that in Portland.Heart is the big dog in town at the moment. They don't make coffee, just espresso.
I was at a Stumptown this past weekend to do some work and to take part in one of their cuppings and spent some time talking to the employees there, their impression is what you just said. Blow up their cold brew business and who cares about anything else that they do. They make a decent cup of coffee, not great, but hey, they do some great informative sessions such as the cuppings and resources online. Aeropress is amazing and so is grinding coffee even if it's by hand, I typically only make one cup at a time anyway (maybe more if I'm doing a comparison) but intend on buying a Chemex or a Kalita Wave because a good pour over is probably my favorite brewing method. So clean, and really great for things like the Gedeb you're talking about. African coffees are currently my favorite and I'd happily drink a few pounds worth, though I've had some really nice Honduran and Guatemalan beans as of late. Weirdest coffee you've had? Also, welcome back to the Seattle coffee scene kleinbl00.Stumptown has lost a good deal of it's shine over the past few years. It just got sold to Peet's coffee, which is in turn owned by a giant holding company, the same holding that company owns Jimmy Choo's. Word is that they want to take the supermarket canned cold brew world wide.
As far as I'm concerned, the "Seattle coffee scene" is $10/lb decent fresh beans at Fred Meyer. Anything beyond that is luxury. Altho - Camano Island Roasters apparently allows you to buy coffee less frequently than a pound every week so I may very well do that again.
What I'm getting out of this is we should meet up at a place that's all about coffee and will tell you all about it while charging $5 + tip for an aeropress. You'll love it.
I got some Kopi Luwak as a Christmas present a few years back. I was never brave enough to drink it.Weirdest coffee you've had?
This is why I can't stand a latte, espresso or anything like that. Coffee is a delivery system for caffeine and antioxidants that keeps me from screaming at people before 2PM.If your beans are any good, you fucking with it just makes the coffee worse.
I like coffee more than that, but considering "turkish coffee" and "cowboy coffee" are both made by throwing grounds in boiled water and not drinking down too far, I reckon that the level of froofitude displayed by most coffee aficionados is a little beyond the pale.
Most probably because they've never explored their world and probably don't give a shit enough to put out the money for quality.
The coffee at work sucks. As in if they used dirty socks to filter it, it would taste better. But it is there, it is free and I drink a lot of it. And on the weekend I drink the good stuff I make in a French press. The worst cup of coffee in the building is still better for you than soda.
http://www.webstaurantstore.com/bunn-cwt15-3-12-cup-automatic-coffee-brewer-with-3-lower-warmers-bunn-12950-0112/234CWT15-3.html That is what we use. Or something very similar to it. I run Vinegar through the machine once a quarter or so and I clean the film out of the pots as well.
Those warmers are the worst. We have two break rooms, one with burners and one with air pots. I walk to the further one with air pots. Our free coffee is pretty decent. I have zero complaints.